New Perspectives on the German Democratic Republic

Introduction New Perspectives on the GDR A Plea for a Paradigm Shift Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Ane a Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus i t took some time in the (pre-unifi cation) Federal Republic of Germany for Inot only researchers but also educators, museums, and memorial policy- makers to begin asking critical questions. But there have been debates about National Socialism and its a ereff ects since 1945. What started hesitatingly and then assumed increasing clarity and importance were questions about how many people were involved in criminal acts; the successes or failures of denazifi cation; the comprehensiveness of compensation for Nazi wrongdoing; whether every victim group had been recognized; and whether the state and its citizens were meeting their material and moral obligations to Israel, among other issues. At fi rst tentatively and then with increasing urgency, historians and other researchers—through their investigations and the ensuing public debate—completed the work initiated by the Allies at the Nuremberg Trials and the twelve tribunals that followed. Critical inquiry on the a ereff ects of National Socialism but also ear- lier periods in German history, including colonialism, continue. Whether football, the secret service, antisemitism, medicine, or immigration policy, no institution, phenomenon, subject, or concept should be excluded from critical scrutiny. The destruction of law and civilization and the establish- ment of megalomaniacal nationalism, racism, antisemitism, and other movements opposed to minorities and modernity as such demand that AFTER AUSCHWITZ – 1 – The Difficult Legacies of the GDR Edited by Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HeitzerAfter Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Ane a Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus the Federal Republic of Germany repeatedly address these legacies as long as it wishes to remain a democracy. Its democratic culture is nurtured in signifi cant ways by the ability to pose questions of this nature. The GDR: Soviet-Style Dictatorship and Post–National Socialist Society The impetus for this book comes from our belief that critical questions about the a ereff ects of National Socialism and other chapters in Ger- many’s past, such as colonialism, are most defi nitely relevant beyond the rupture of 1945, not least with regard to the German Democratic Republic (GDR), its political system, foreign policy, society, culture, and everyday life. Researchers and publishers have addressed these issues, but not in the depth and breadth presented in this book. In various ways, the contributors here wrestle with precisely how denazifi cation was addressed, in what manner Nazis were excluded from or integrated into the GDR, how antisemitism cultivated by National Socialism was eradicated or persisted, and how surviving Nazi victims were compensated or not. It asks how communists deployed their history as victims of Nazi persecution to legitimize a new dictatorship, whether antifascism was underpinned by antisemitism, and whether antifascism and denazifi cation can lay claim to a lasting contribution to the democratization of the Federal Republic of Germany. These questions have not yet received systematic analytical a ention. Today, journalists, schools, museums, and memorials have some catching up to do, given that the GDR and other “Soviet-style dictatorships” (Mlynar 1982–1989) did not adequately address National Socialism and its a ereff ects. The extermination of European Jews, the mass murder of Sinti and Roma, and the war of pillage and extermination against the Soviet Union were only mentioned in the context of preserving the power of ruling elites and their ideological alliances in the GDR and other societies of the former Soviet Bloc. The o en heroic communist and noncommunist resistance to Nazi Germany’s policies and allies, the Warsaw ghe o insurrection of 1943, and the uprising led by the Polish Home Army in 1944 were equally neglected. Indeed, the a ereff ects of National Socialism and its historical ante- cedents were clearly observable in the satellite states of the Soviet Union until its dissolution. Large numbers of Nazi victims were never recognized, received no compensation, and faced persecution once again, while Nazi perpetrators were never held to account. The persistence of antisemitism, racism, homophobia, and antiziganism was conspicuous. Engaging AFTER AUSCHWITZ – 2 – The Difficult Legacies of the GDR Edited by Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HeitzerAfter Introduction with origins and causes was possible only within strictly enforced limits. As closed societies, the communist SED state and other Soviet-style dictatorships that defi ned themselves as socialist were unwilling and unable to confront these problems and to allow public discussion and, with it, potential controversy (Amadeu Antonio Foundation 2010). The GDR: Demonization, Limits of Discourse, and Germany’s History of Suffering This book makes a plea for a more intensive, systematic focus on the SED state as one of three successor societies to National Socialism (Bergmann, Erb, and Lichtblau 1995). It is also—but by no means exclusively—a plea for the rediscovery of history as a method of ideological critique. The SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) legitimized the existence of the GDR by adopting a highly idiosyncratic view of German history. Its narratives revolved around terms such as “capitalism,” “fascism,” “antifascism,” “imperialism,” and “Zionism.” Used in highly disparate ways, these terms had functions detached from their analytical meaning. Since free, controversial discourse was impossible, the terms of analytical critique that citizens were required to adopt, and that appeared in offi cial prescriptions that limited permissible debate, were adversarial, even demonizing. The critical deconstruction and analysis of their propagandistic functions are tasks that are indispensable to our proposed shi toward examining the GDR as a post–National Socialist society. Engaging in an ideological critique of terms like “fascism” and “antifascism” and their functions goes beyond engagement with the GDR. Neither the analytical concept of “fascism” nor the political concept of “antifascism” disappeared with the fall of the GDR. Their salient features, the “le -wing” relativization of Nazi crimes, and the demonization of Western democracies, particularly the United States and Israel, have persisted, though now under the conditions of social pluralism and the possibility of free and open debate. Recovering contemporary historical research as a method of ideological critique proves indispensable in another context. In the eyes of many opponents of the German Soviet-style dictatorship, the origins and development of the SED state constitute a narrative of suff ering for the German people. Instead of critical refl ection on the continuities of German history and ties to transnational contexts, or examining links to present-day society, criticism of the SED dictatorship was sometimes imbued with a more conservative, anti-communist national revisionism and, not infrequently, with forms of anti-Americanism and antisemitism. AFTER AUSCHWITZ – 3 – The Difficult Legacies of the GDR Edited by Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HeitzerAfter Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Ane a Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus This is why opponents of the SED in the (pre-unifi cation) Federal Re- public of Germany o en called for a “reversal in commemorative policy” and a shi toward a historiography that was designed less to empower responsible citizens to form their own critical judgments and more to un- derpin a form of German nationalism. The ideological critique of this historiography should not only focus on the past; it must remain a work in progress. Role Models and Productive Input Our plea for a new perspective on the GDR draws on diverse infl uences. The fi rst deserving mention is historian Helmut Eschwege. His research and writing focused on the GDR, the history of the Holocaust, and the history of the Jews in the GDR (Berg 2003: 442–447). Examining Jewish resistance to National Socialism, he criticized the antifascist tradition enshrined in the GDR’s historiography. His work, like other research on the history of the Jews in the GDR, could be published only in the Federal Republic of Germany. Some of his works have never been published at all. We drew additional inspiration from the Crises in Soviet-Style Sys- tems series, published in the 1980s (Mlynar 1982–1989). It advanced critical discourse on the Soviet Union and its satellite states, and the authors involved in this project came from across Eastern Europe. Their publica- tions described the societies of Eastern Europe as examples of the shared category “Soviet-style dictatorship” on the one hand, but emphasized their disparate histories and crisis elements on the other. Another important infl uence is Schwieriges Erbe (Diffi cult heritage), an anthology published by Werner Bergmann, Rainer Erb, and Albert Licht- blau in 1995. Six years a er the fall of the Berlin Wall, authors from Aus- tria and the (new) Federal Republic of Germany outlined and compared portraits of three societies in the post-Nazi era: the GDR, Austria, and the FRG. Seldom has a more accurate treatment of the history and structure of the GDR as a post–National Socialist society been

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